UN expert: 'Acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza met'

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
25 Mar 2024 23:49
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UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese asserts that in the case of the Israeli occupation, "evacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing."

Palestinians inspect the damage of residential buildings after an Israeli occupation airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Sunday, March 24, 2024. (AP)

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, announced that there was sufficient evidence suggesting that "Israel" has engaged in multiple instances of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" in the Gaza Strip.

Albanese explained that the Israeli occupation has violated three of the five acts listed under the International Genocide Convention, stressing that the "overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group."

In the report, Albanese also noted "reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of... acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met."

Titled "Anatomy of a Genocide", Albanese's report, which is set to be presented on Tuesday to the Human Rights Council, listed those acts as: "killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group's members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Moreover, Albanese, in her report, maintained that the Israeli occupation's "genocidal acts" followed "statements of genocidal intent," and cited senior Israeli officials declaring an intent to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip only to be replaced by Israeli occupation settlers.

This, according to the UN rapporteur, meant that "evacuation orders and safe zones have been used as genocidal tools to achieve ethnic cleansing" while also treating all Palestinian people and infrastructure "as 'terrorist' or 'terrorist-supporting', thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage."

Israeli crimes in Gaza may keep ICC busy for next 50 years

The UN Special Rapporteur's denunciation of Israeli crimes and support for Palestinians is not new.

Earlier, Francesca Albanese said that "Israel's" crimes in Gaza for nearly six months could keep the International Criminal Court (ICC) busy for the next 50 years.

Albanese posted a video on X showing Israeli occupation forces pursuing and killing four Palestinian civilians in the city of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, with an armed drone.

"The colossal amount of evidence concerning international crimes committed by Israel in Gaza just over the past six months could keep the International Criminal Court busy for the next five decades, especially at the current proceedings pace," she warned.

She reiterated that holding "Israel" accountable is "more needed than ever" as it continues to commit crimes and genocide against the Palestinians.